Friday, September 13, 2013

We must support The Guardian

This post is embarrassingly late but I suppose it's better than never. It was around 19th August that I learnt of an alarming series of episodes concerning The Guardian: the detention of the partner of Glenn Greenwald, the journalist publishing Edward Snowden's explosive documents on spying by the NSA and GCHQ; government agents sent to the paper's offices to destroy its computers; and prime minister David Cameron ordering a top aide to threaten the paper that it faced "serious consequences" if it continued reporting.

Today I've become tardily aware of the opportunity to sign an open letter of support for The Guardian and its journalists in withstanding all this pressure from the UK government. The letter was put together on 22 Aug by SumOfUs.

So I've belatedly signed the letter and suggest you do too. SumOfUs claims, correctly so far as I can see, that the UK government is trying to intimidate and shut down The Guardian's investigation into the NSA scandal. “For this to be happening in the UK is chilling” they say, and their letter aims “to show The Guardian, its journalists, and editor that they have public support for their vital work in revealing the true extent of mass spying programmes” and to demonstrate to the UK government and its intelligence agencies that “we will not allow our basic rights and freedoms to be curtailed.”

The Guardian has established itself as a major force in global journalism, having broken stories on the Wikileaks diplomatic files, the UK phone hacking scandal, and now perhaps its most important scoop, revealing that every person’s phone, email and web history is tracked and stored by the NSA and Western intelligence agencies.